Column: Susan Rice exit more complicated than it seems

Dec. 13, 2012
|

U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Susan Rice / Don Emmert, AFP/Getty Images

by Tom DeFrank, USA TODAY

by Tom DeFrank, USA TODAY

Susan Rice was on borrowed time the moment President Obama wrapped his rhetorical arms around her a week after the election and told Republicans to stop picking on his fabulous United Nations ambassador.

Don't believe for an instant that bowing out of the competition to replace Hillary Clinton was Rice's idea. That's not how Washington works.

Obama said he reluctantly "accepted her decision to remove her name from consideration for Secretary of State." As they say in Texas, don't bet the ranch on that.

The handling of Rice's demise is a staple of the capital's power ritual, where good news is announced personally by the president, but bad news comes in a written statement and is often someone else's idea.

Obama's body language at his Nov. 14 press conference exuded fierce defiance. He called the attacks against Rice by Republican Sens. John McCain and Lindsey Graham "outrageous" and taunted them to come after him instead of attacking a distinguished public servant simply doing her job in the aftermath of the Benghazi terror attack that killed four Americans.

If he concluded Rice was the best person for the State Department, Obama said, he'd nominate her â?? regardless of Republican brickbats. "That's not a determination that I've made yet," he added â?? tellingly.

Listening from a fourth-row seat in the East Room, I came away with the strong sense Obama was actually signaling Rice was a goner. He needed to leap to her defense vigorously to mollify the Democratic base, especially African Americans and women, but there were safer options for the post.

There's no doubt Obama's defense of Rice was heartfelt. But any president, even one fresh from a convincing re-election victory, has only so much political capital to expend. He knew Rice's nomination would have precipitated a legislative food fight with Senate Republicans whose goodwill â?? and votes â?? he needs for the titanic budget battles ahead.

He probably could have gotten Rice confirmed by the Senate, but it would have been a Pyrrhic victory, consuming vast sums of political chips as messy confirmation hearings dragged on for weeks.

White House political handlers understood that Rice was simply too much of a liability to Obama's strategic agenda, and his legacy, over the next four years. Simply stated, she flunked the risk-reward test.

So she purportedly decided to opt out herself, sparing the president considerable grief.

That's the way it's done in Washington â?? at least for public consumption. The reality is almost always otherwise.

It's reminiscent of Sen. George McGovern, the 1972 Democratic presidential nominee, announcing he backed running mate Thomas Eagleton "one thousand percent" after it became known Sen. Eagleton had once undergone shock therapy treatments for depression. Soon thereafter, Eagleton was asking McGovern to drop him from the ticket.

This it's-actually-my-idea minuet is a corollary to the time-honored tradition of top government appointees being told the president is prepared to nominate them "if you're prepared to accept." That semantic ploy enables an administration to say that someone who turns down a plum job didn't say no because the job was never offered.

Susan Rice may have been a victim of pragmatic political realities, but if Obama had wanted her, she wouldn't have needed to fall on her sword.

Tom DeFrank was Newsweek's White House correspondent for 25 years and served as the Washington bureau chief of the New York Daily News. He co-authored the memoirs of Secretary of State James Baker.

In addition to its own editorials, USA TODAY publishes diverse opinions from outside writers, including our Board of Contributors.